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The Simpsons on Imigration

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0700

Laura Bush on Separating Families

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0700

Presidents have a long history of being silent after they leave office. I wonder how much of this came from Laura alone, or if she is speaking for her husband as well.

Gothamist Shuts Down

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 -0700

This one hit me hard. Gothamist’s sister site published my favorite San Francisco news site, SFist. It was one of my go-to websites every morning. We’ve had so many fabulously productive poops together.

I’m bummed because, as far as I saw, SFist actually got it. Old media players just posted recycled broadcast videos and lukewarm paragraphs as a synopsis with the hope you’d watch the video. This never made sense to me. You can’t watch a videos when you’re bored in a meeting. You can’t skim videos. You can’t link to a quote in videos.

Maybe I’m showing my age, but I much prefer text (née print) journalism…

Inmates built computers from spare parts, then hacked into the prison's network.

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 02:41:02 -0700

This is almost impossible to believe. Inmates in an Ohio prison built computers using components gathered from their job as recyclers. They hid them in the ceiling of an office and cracked the prison’s servers, issued passes, and modified records. By all accounts they had spotless records. I wonder why?

Marco Arment on USB-C

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 02:41:01 -0700

This is a fascinating article about USB-C. I knew there were some compatibility issues with adapters but there’s a lot more to unpack. I’m surprised I had no idea about this:

…if you have a 13-inch model, and it has a Touch Bar, then the right-side ports don’t have full Thunderbolt bandwidth.

USS Arizona Brothers

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Thank you to all who have served our country. On this Veterans day, I want to share a deeply personal story about my family members and the sacrifices they made in World War II.

I hope we never forget the incredible sacrifice of brave men and women at Pearl Harbor. A lesser known fact is that 38 sets of brothers served together on the USS Arizona. Two of those men were my Great Uncles. The story of how one survived and the other died is almost unbelievable. Frankly, I’d have thought it little more than Family lore until I visited the USS Arizona Memorial.

Back in 1941, Stanley and Tony Czarnecki were stationed aboard the USS Arizona. Both Michigan boys were enjoying the first warm winter of their lives. Hawaii’s weather was beautiful, but Tony missed his new bride Dorothy. Having never seen grass in the Winter, Dorothy flew to Hawaii to visit her husband, quite an expense in the 1940s.

Stanley had been assigned shore leave the night of December 8th, which happened to be Dorothy’s last night in Hawaii. Stanley traded his leave to Tony so he could have one more night with his sweetheart. The next morning Imperial Japan dropped four 410-milimeter armor piercing bombs on USS Arizona. In all likelihood, Stanley had been killed instantly. …but that should have been Tony. Stanley was to have been on shore if not for a brotherly barter for a different night off.

Tony rushed to the harbor to lend a hand. Through a thick cloud of smoke, he saw his ship burning. Survivors on shore tell gut wrenching stories about how they couldn’t help shipmates; their Navy brothers. For Tony that feeling was all too real as he stood safely on shore. At some point, he realized traded his brother’s fate for his own. I can’t imagine the feeling and know he lived with the pain for the rest of his life. At the time, Tony sent a message home letting his parents know he was safe. I’m not sure if he could bear to tell them Stanley wasn’t.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the youngest son in the family lined up to join the war effort. Clarence, two years too young to join the military, lied about his age. Of course this was long before comprehensive background checks, and honestly, I’m not sure recruiters would have even cared. Two weeks later that boy was on his way to the Pacific where he experienced ship-to-ship combat. Fortunately, the only thing he lost was half his hearing. I never understood why I always had to yell at Grandpa until my Aunt explained he went deaf manning cannons and guns on destroyers.

I am honored to come from a family of such strong men. I could never have their courage, and it’s for that reason I owe them more than a simple debt of thanks. Unfortunately, I have nothing more to offer.

I hope this bit of history sticks in your memory and serves as a constant reminder many people have done far more for our country than most of us ever will. To to the active duty men and women who have done as much, if not more, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I may not be happy with the results of our last election, but I am overwhelmingly happy we have, and always will have free elections. Whether it’s a win or loss for your candidate, it’s a win for democracy, and that’s a win for everyone.

May peace be with all of us, here and abroad, and until it’s a reality. I hope we can approach conflicts with dignity, compassion, and most of all, respect.

I'm With Her

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Steve Jobs Hated Function Keys

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 02:40:59 -0700

I can’t wait to get my hands on Apple’s new Touch Bar. Now a dynamic display replaces the function keys on top of MacBook Pro’s keyboard. The last time Apple shipped a keyboard without function keys was way back in 1984.

Steve Jobs didn’t like function keys and made sure they didn’t appear on Macintosh’s keyboard. A couple of years later Apple was in panic mode trying to stop the IBM PC from owning the entire computer market. Rather than making strategic decisions with a focus on Macintosh’s stellar user experience, strategists opted for half measures. Adding F-Keys to Apple’s keyboards would make them as businessy IBM’s, so that was a given. Obviously, that’s all the saving Apple would need. Somehow it didn’t work.

Steve didn’t sign many autographs, but Steve Jurvetson got lucky one day when he asked him to sign an Apple Extended Keyboard. What happened next is documented in Alan Deutschman’s The Second Coming of Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs said he’d do it, but only if first he could remove all the unnecessary keys that his successors had added in a foolish effort to make the Mac more like a Microsoft-Intel PC. He despised the long row of so-called function keys. […] So Steve Jobs pulled his car keys out of his pocket and began scooping into the computer keyboard, violently disgorging all the keys that offended him. “I’m changing the world one keyboard at a time”, he said with a straight face. Only then, when he had mutilated the apparatus, did he take a pen and scribble his autograph on it.

In time these keys pulled double duty with functions for the changing screen brightness, volume, and controlling music. Honestly, how many of you ever used them for their proper F-ing purpose?

POTUS handles will go to future presidents

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:00:00 -0700

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube will assign the @POTUS username to any sitting President of the United States. The old accounts will continue to exist under a new username: @POTUS44 for Twitter, ObamaWhiteHouse for others. The same is true of @FLOTUS, @PressSec, and @VP.

Apple and Accessibility

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 02:40:58 -0700

I love that Apple used an accessibility video to start last week’s keynote; the dedication to accessibility warms my heart. It isn’t just some legal requirement or a layer of software that’s slapped on a product as it goes out the door, Apple people realize this is a moral imperative.

It’s clear Apple has a dedicated team of people designing, developing, and testing this stuff. I have no idea whether Apple gets any return on its investment here. The percentage of people who absolutely require accessibility features must be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that makes them no less important than other features.

That said, you don’t have to be permanently disabled to benefit from accessibility features. Maybe you’re in a library and need to watch a video with captions. Perhaps you broke your arm and needed to dictate your messages for a month. While accessibility is essential for some users, it’s handy for everyone.